Core Record

Title

A nobleman and his guests watching a nautch

Collection

Artworld: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Date

1830 CE

Description

Three girl 'kathak' dancers, two 'sarangi'-players, a 'tabla'-player and a cymbalist perform at night to the light of torches held by servants on a 'dari' spread under a 'shimiyana' before a palace veranda. To the right the host and his five guests sit on a carpet attended by two servants.

Description Source

Robert Skelton. In: Steven Hooper (ed.). 1997. Catalogue to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. University of East Anglia.

Cultural Context

Indian

Id Number Current Accession

765

Location Creation Site

Bharat, Delhi

Location Current Repository

Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Subject

visual work, painting, miniature

Measurements

306 x 246 x 1 mm

Context

The last phase of Mughal painting is often treated as a branch of the 'Company' school, as many of its patrons were Europeans, who were becoming established in Delhi during the reign of Akbar Shah II. One of these was Reginald Heber, the Bishop of Calcutta, who journeyed through Northern India in 1824-5 and described a performance in Delhi which was evidently similar to that depicted here. 'Their dresses were rich but there was such a quantity of scarlet cloth petticoats and trousers, so many shawls wrapped around their waists, and such multifarious skirts peeping out below each other, that their figures were quite hidden, and the whole effect was that of a number of Dutch dolls, though the faces of two or three out of the number were pretty' (cited in Crooke, 1906: 126).There were a number of dance troupes in Delhi at this time, some of which were attracted to Lucknow soon after by the patronage of Wajid 'Ali Shah. Apart from contemporary pictures of performances, group portraits also exist (see Victoria and Albert, 1982: 53, no. 103). M. Archer (1962) describes the nautch, a performance by professional Indian dancing girls.

Context Source

Robert Skelton. In: Steven Hooper (ed.). 1997. Catalogue to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. University of East Anglia.